Podcast: Beyond the Swedish Postcard
Episode Type: Bonus Episode
Episode Focus: The history, magic, and modern joy of Swedish Midsummer: from pagan crop rituals and love spells to flower crowns, frog dances, and the movie that terrified the world.
“Midsummer is layers. The top layer is a party. The bottom layer is something else entirely.”
🎧 Listen to the Episode
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📖 Episode Summary
Midsummer is next Friday, June 19. It’s a red day. Schools have graduated. Grocery stores are piled with new potatoes, strawberries, and herring in bright sauces. Somewhere in the back, behind the regular fish, you can find the surströmming .
This bonus episode explores everything that makes Midsummer what it is:
- The oldest layer – sun worship, crop magic, agricultural rituals from the Viking Age
- The love magic – picking seven flowers in silence to dream of your future spouse
- The Christian layer – St. John the Baptist’s feast (June 24), bonfires blessed by priests
- The frog dance – Små grodorna, the absurd, joyful, earless-and-tailless frogs
- Modern Midsummer – flower crowns for everyone, herring, new potatoes, schnapps, surströmming
- The movie that terrified everyone – Ari Aster’s Midsommar (2019) – and why real Midsummer has no bear carcasses or cliff jumping
- Why it still matters – Sweden’s real national holiday, a collective exhale after the long winter
📍 Places Mentioned
Any field in Sweden – The maypole is raised in village greens, parks, and summer house lawns across the country.
Linköping – student graduation parties and the place of the surströmming courtyard incident.
The Arctic Circle – Where the sun literally doesn’t set on Midsummer.
Your nearest grocery store – Where surströmming hides in the refrigerated section.
📖 Sources & Further Reading
Historical sources:
- Nordberg, Andreas. Jul, disting och förkyrklig tideräkning (pre-Christian solar calendar)
- Swedish National Heritage Board (Riksantikvarieämbetet) – folk customs archives
- Britannica – Midsummer traditions across Europe
Folklore archives:
- Institutet för språk och folkminnen (Swedish Institute for Language and Folklore) – records of flower-picking traditions
Film:
- Aster, Ari. Midsommar (2019) – fiction, not a documentary
Modern Midsummer:
- Visit Sweden – official tourist information on Midsummer
- Various Swedish food blogs – surströmming challenges
🧠 Key Takeaways
1. Midsommar is older than Christianity.
The summer solstice marked the peak of the sun’s power. After months of cold and dark, people celebrated life, fertility, and the coming harvest. Vikings lit bonfires to honor the sun and protect the crops.
2. The maypole is probably a phallic symbol.
Planting a tall wooden pole wrapped in greenery in the middle of the field blesses the soil and asks for a strong harvest. Its origins are debated; some say ancient, some say German import – but the impulse is unmistakable.
3. The love magic was quiet and private.
Young women picked seven or nine different wildflowers in complete silence – sometimes crossing fences and churchyards without speaking. They placed the flowers under their pillow and dreamed of their future spouse.
4. The church absorbed the solstice.
The Catholic Church tied the summer solstice to St. John the Baptist’s feast (June 24). Pagan bonfires became Saint John’s fires. The old layer never fully disappeared.
5. The frog dance is absurd and joyful.
Små grodorna – the frogs have no ears and no tails. Nobody knows all the words. Everyone does it anyway. It’s been around long enough to feel ancient, even if it probably isn’t.
6. Flower crowns are for everyone now.
Not just young women looking for love. Children, adults, even teenagers who are too cool for everything else will tolerate a flower crown on Midsummer. You become part of the field, part of the light.
7. The food is a feast of early summer.
Herring (sill) in a dozen marinades. New potatoes (färskpotatis) with dill and butter. Strawberries with cream. Schnapps with songs. Everything fresh, everything new.
8. Surströmming is an acquired taste.
The can bulges because it’s been fermenting for months. The smell is apocalyptic. Many Swedes love it. Many Swedes refuse to let it in the house. Eat it outdoors.
9. The movie Midsommar is not real.
No bear carcasses. No cliff jumping. No pubic hair in your potatoes. Ari Aster took the eerie feeling of Midsummer – the thin veil, the ancient strangeness – and pushed it to a nightmare extreme. Real Midsummer is herring and bad singing.
10. Midsummer is Sweden’s real national holiday.
June 6 (National Day) is polite and quiet. Midsummer is loud, old, pagan, rural. Even tech workers in apartments go back to the village. They drink snaps and sing songs their grandparents sang and dance like frogs.
11. The veil feels thin on Midsummer.
Plants gathered on Midsummer’s Eve were believed to hold stronger healing powers. Springs carried extra energy. Magic was possible. That feeling – of the old world poking through – is still there.
12. One small addition changes everything.
Like a partikel verb. Take a regular Thursday in June. Add a maypole and schnapps and a sun that won’t set. Suddenly it’s Midsommar. The longest day. The one where the veil is thin.
💬 Quotes
“This country that spends half the year in darkness explodes with joy on the longest day. They let the old gods back in, just for a night, and then they go back to work on Monday.”
“If you ever need to add some comedy to your life, just google ‘people trying surströmming’ and watch full-grown adults realize they are in way over their heads.”
🗣️ Pronunciation Guide
- Midsommar – MEED-som-mar
- Midsommarstång – MEED-som-mar-stong (maypole)
- Små grodorna – SMO GROO-dohr-nah (the little frogs)
- Surströmming – SEER-strum-ming (fermented herring)
- Sill – SILL (herring)
- Färskpotatis – FAIRSK-poo-tah-tiss (new potatoes)
- Helan går – HAY-lahn GOR (the schnapps song)
- Ättestupa – ET-teh-stoo-pah (cliff of ancestors – from the movie, not real)
- Röd dag – ROOD dahg (red day = public holiday)
- Partikelverb – par-TEE-kel-verb (particle verbs)
- Känna igen – CHEN-nah ee-YEN (recognize)
- Komma ihåg – KOM-mah ee-HOG (remember)
- Tack – TAK (thanks)
🔁 Share the Episode
If this episode made you smile – or made you want to pick seven flowers and put them under your pillow:
- 🎧 Subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode (the Dacke War is coming)
- 📤 Share with a friend who loves Swedish traditions, folk magic, or the movie Midsommar
- ✍️ Leave a review – it helps others find the show
🎙️ Coming Next
Episode 20 – The Dacke War
Back to the heavy stuff. Peasant resistance. Nils Dacke leads the largest uprising against Gustav Vasa’s Reformation. The king’s army marches south. It will be bloody, brutal, and decisive. The price of the new Sweden.
That’s next time.
🏁 Final Thought
“Go stand in a field somewhere. Eat some herring. Try not to open the surströmming indoors. And if you’re somewhere else, watching from far away, maybe pick seven flowers and put them under your pillow. Just in case. The old magic was about the harvest first, but it always made room for love.”
Glad Midsommar. 🌸
Until next time, keep looking beyond the Swedish postcard.
— JB
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